Information handling systems are becoming increasingly complex and difficult both to set up and restore. When a user is forced to recreate some or all of a system because of a system crash, hard disk failure, or user error, the task is often time-consuming and complex.
Prior art methods for backing up and restoring an information handling system typically involve backing up the entire system on a regular basis. The system is usually backed up to diskettes, a tape, or a secondary hard disk. However, there are several problems with this prior art backup and restore method. Backing up the entire information handling system can take a long time and consume a large amount of storage. Many of the files which are backed up do not necessarily have to be saved, as many of these files are part of software packages which can easily be reinstalled from the user's copy of the software package. In addition, even if a recent backup copy of the information handling system is available, it is not necessarily the latest copy.
Some software packages provide a method for backing up user data files. These software packages prompt the user to backup data files on a regular basis. However, the disadvantage of this prior art approach is that the only files saved are those data files that belong to the particular software application. A further disadvantage of this prior art approach is that application programs often back up only user data, and do not back up configuration data. One piece of configuration data frequently ignored (i.e. not backup up) by application programs is the configuration file which describes the components of the application which are installed. If this data were to be saved, then if the user needed to reinstall the application, the user would not have to go through a laborious setup process, trying to remember the previous configuration.
Consequently, it would be desirable to have a system and method to manage and back up those critical files which are difficult to recover after an event such as a system crash or hard disk failure. It would also be desirable if the system and method were easy to use, and did not take a significant amount of time or system resources.